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Salon.com has an article on the new Creation Museum. The museum is an inadvertent exhibition of myriad and uncreative (which is not to say inherently ineffective) ways that Christian fundamentalists perpetuate anti-science mendacities--also known as lies about geology and biology, and the omission of facts revealed to the world through genetics and astronomy.

From the article we learn that for the organization that built the museum, Answers In Genesis,

the conclusions of modern science are not to be trusted, as they are biased by the fickle reasoning of man and a modern antagonism toward faith. On the other hand...the Book of Genesis is true "from the first word to the last."

With a staff of nearly 300 employees, Answers in Genesis [is] a well-oiled money-raising machine and opened the $27 million museum without a penny of debt to banks or lenders.

The museum is situated in Petersburg, Ky., just 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati...within a one-day drive for two-thirds of the country or 200 million Americans....

However, just because the museum is an exhibition of lies, doesn't mean it will financially fail. The article reminds us that "Only 39 percent [of Americans] answer yes to the question, 'Do you believe that human beings as we know them developed from earlier species of animals?'"

I know it's been several days since there's been a diary on Religious Right Watch. In part that's because I'm in the UK for a visit, including for the civil partnership ceremony of my friends Gareth and Simon. (Photo: a friend of Gareth & Simon, who are seated, signs as witness.) It's the second time in as many years that I've had the pleasure and honor to be in the UK for a celebration of a civil partnership. The legalization of civil partnerships in the UK has had all the negative consequences one might reasonably expect. None.

Milliners' sales have been bolstered, of course, and the increase in cleaning services for hats and morning coats is no great cause for concern, since the UK has strong standards regarding the ecological soundness of commercial cleaning operations. It might also be noted that the monarchy remains intact, tea inexpensive, the economy expansive, toast hard, mobile phones more advanced than in the US, airing rooms abundant, and the countryside beautiful. The Hebrides have not fallen into the sea.

Religious Right Watch expresses its condolences to Jerry Falwell's family and friends. However, it also must be noted that Jerry Falwell vilified and demonized millions of Americans during his career. His death provides an opportunity to remember his role in the founding of the religious right.

[T]he New Right arose in the mid-1960's and early 1970's.... The key figures here are the direct mail expert Richard Viguerie, political organizer Paul Weyrich, and Howard Phillips. These men have...an extremely conservative and economic agenda. Paul Weyrich [is] also the Godfather of the Religious Right. In 1973 with aid from money from Joseph Coors, Weyrich helped establish the Heritage Foundation..... Weyrich has said, "This alliance between religion and politics didn't just happen. I have been working on this for years.".....Beginning in 1976, [Paul] Weyrich, Phillips and Morton Blackwell, who organizes young men and teaches them how to be political activists -- Ralph Reed is one of his graduates -- launched a concentrated effort to involve conservative churches in their cause.... They met with Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1979. And in the coffee shop of the Holiday Inn there, Weyrich was saying to Falwell, "There is a moral majority in this country that wants such and such," and Falwell said, "Back to where you started. What was that you said? You used a phrase." Weyrich said, "There is a moral majority . . . " Falwell says, "That's it. That's what we'll call it. We'll form an organization, and that is the name we'll give it." In the 1980 election, Falwell's Moral Majority was the most visible representative of what came to be called the Religious Right...."

In the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the ban on "partial-birth" abortions, one commentator sees the injection of Roman Catholic doctrine into U.S. law. From the essay on Salon.com:

The [court's] opinion, written by Anthony Kennedy, who is considered the least orthodox of the five [Roman Catholic Supreme Court judges], was devastating. Beyond outlawing a method of abortion it deemed only possibly needed by a few women, the decision injected orthodox Catholic teaching into the interpretation of constitutional rights. Kennedy's opinion, which affirms "the government's right to use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman" as it cavalierly dismisses the need a few specific women might have for this procedure, could easily have been written by the late Pope John Paul II or the current Benedict XVI. Women are invisible in this decision as they are invisible in the writings of recent -- and not so recent -- popes. Now it's impossible for me to remain silent.

The orthodox Catholic preoccupation with the morality of physical acts to the exclusion of the context in which those acts occur is evident in the amount of space the Kennedy decision gives to the description of the medical procedure (approximately eight pages), with only a few paragraphs on the possibility that banning the procedure would "subject [women] to significant health risks."

Economic globalization is a phenomenon greater than the sum of its parts, which include governments, political leaders, NGO's, innovators, entrepreneurs, and multinational corporations. Each part finds itself affected by the others, sometimes in ways or degrees that surprise participants and observers alike. The religious right is a political movement. It is closely associated with the United States, but there have always been some leaders and strategists of the religious right with international ambitions. What is more, one can find some non-US influences on the development of the religious right, even if they are sometimes indirect. For instance, the dispensationalism that many members of the religious right embrace, is the product of an Anglican priest in the Church of Ireland. Granted, dispensationalism is a theological, not political, concept; but, it has implications for the way many leaders of the religious right view the world, including an emphasis on the modern state of Israel.

The religious right, as one of the most important and successful political movements in America in the 20th-century and still today, continues to increase its level of interfere outside of the U.S., and I can't help but wonder if or how the international interactions will change it.

"It is not enough to stop public recognition of 'gay marriage,' nor to oppose 'safe sex education' in the public schools, nor to ban partial birth abortion, nor to create optional 'covenant' marriages," it reads. "Victory for the natural family will come only as we change the terms of debate."

PFAW continues:

Joining the jet-setting religious-right activists is Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, and as we noted, members of the European parliament are not happy with this apparent “official U.S. government stamp of approval [on the] extremist and intolerant views” likely to come together in the conference as it battles “the secularists” (in the Howard Center’s words) and a conspiracy of world governments (as a papal representative warned at a previous Congress of Families) that are pushing the continent to a “demographic winter.” "If Europe succumbs to the modern, post-family, secular worldview completely, it's like losing a great ally in a global contest," warned Carlson.

The religious right basks in, promotes for political ends, and encourages science illiteracy. Know your science, and you're all that much better armed against the religious right. Encourage others to understand science, and you're actively and directly helping combat the influence of the religious right. That's why I encourage you to read and spread the word about this free PDF download, Big Picture On Evolution.

When biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote these words in 1973, he was reflecting on the coming together of two strands of thinking: evolutionary change, kick-started by Darwin in the mid-19th century, and genetics, a subject whose origins go back to the same year, with Mendel's studies, but only really got going in the 20th century.

Since then, the general principles of Darwinian evolution have been widely accepted. At least, they have been in the scientific community. In wider society, a significant proportion of people remain sceptical.

Why should this be? Why does Darwinian evolution raise controversy when, say, quantum mechanics scarcely registers on the public consciousness? This issue of 'Big Picture' looks at the theory of evolution, the evidence that supports it. unanswered questions and the history of public reaction.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a bill that promises to extend protection from violent or discriminatory acts of hate to gay and lesbian Americans.

In a shocking turn of events, even for this administration, President Bush has threatened to veto this anti-hate bill. With the overwhelming congressional and public support for this legislation, many are asking who the President could possibly be serving with such a commitment; the answer unfortunately is the religious right.

Over the last few months the religious right has waged a deceptive campaign opposing this pro-equality legislation. They have employed a range of excuses; Chuck Colson compared the law to something out of George Orwell's famous novel 19841, Tony Perkins has stated that the legislation is “contrary to our heritage and our values,” and just this week James Dobson told listeners of Focus on the Family Radio, “there’s a vote coming up on some insidious legislation in the United States Congress that could silence and punish Christians for their moral beliefs. That means that as a Christian – if you read the Bible a certain way with regard to morality – you may be guilty of committing a ‘thought crime.”

Such sentiments beg the question: does the religious right truly believe that hate speech is an integral component of their faith?....While most Americans see the religious right’s campaign for what it is -- an attempt to make gay and lesbian Americans second class citizens -- their bigoted views have found audience with at least one man, President Bush.

Click here to send Chuck Colson, Tony Perkins, and James Dobson a letter condemning their campaign of hate. These men aren’t simply opposing core American values of equality, they’re perverting faith.

Creationism going global. A special report in the April 19, 2007, edition of The Economist -- exotically datelined "Istanbul, Moscow, and Rome" -- discusses the continued global spread of creationism. The incidents discussed are the dissemination of a book preaching Islamic creationism...

The Yoism website has a page on the Religious Right. A good read. (A lot of the video clips it links to aren't on YouTube anymore, but that's minor.) From the website:

This is about religion, about the incredible organizing power that can be wielded by religious groups in any kind of competition (e.g., military, political) with other groups. This is about how a small group of Republican strategists targeted a religious constituency to expand the base of their party, and how a small group of religious extremists targeted the Republican Party to bring the United States government under religious control.

This is also about our need to organize with equal effectiveness, or passively watch as the Christian Right continues its takeover of America. George Bush's plummeting approval ratings may give some a false sense of relief that the worst is over and the pendulum will swing back toward the center. As documented in the first video on this page, the 2006 election may also foster such an illusion. However, there is nothing to substantiate this wishful thinking. The fact is that all the viable presidential contenders who are not religious extremists already, from Hilary Clinton to Barack Obama to John McCain to Mitt Romney, are all tripping over one another in their attempt to scurry to the right. It is now an accepted political reality that one must pander to the religious right to win a national election. George Bush may go down, the religious right may even suffer some setbacks, but they are revelling in their growing political strength and organization.